AeÃ«tes

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AeÃ«tes

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Aeëtes (also spelled Ætes) was a son of the king-god Helios

Helios

Helios is the god of sun.In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios . Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion , while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn....
and the nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
Perseis

Perseis

Perseis may refer to:*Perse*Perseis ...
(a daughter of Oceanus

Oceanus

Oceanus was believed to be the World Ocean in classical antiquity, which the Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece considered to be an enormous river encircling the world....
), brother of Circe

Circe

In Greek mythology, Circe , is a Queen goddess living on the island of Aeaea.Circe's father was Helios , the god of the sun and the owner of the land where Odysseus' men ate cattle, and her mother was Hecate the goddess of magic and the moon ; she was sister of two kings of Colchis, Aeetes and Perses, and of Pasipha?, mother of the Mino...
and Pasiphae

Pasiphaë

In Greek mythology, Pasipha? , "wide-shining" was the daughter of Helios, the Sun, by the eldest of the Oceanids, Perse; Like her doublet Europa, her origins were in the East, in her case at Colchis, the palace of the Sun; she was given in marriage to King Minos of Crete....
, and father of Medea

Medea

Chalciope

Chalciope was a princess in Greek mythology, daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, sister of Medea and wife of Phrixus. Phrixus, son of Athamus and Nephele, along with his twin Helle , were hated by their stepmother, Ino....
and Apsyrtus. According to others, he was brother of Perses

Perses

Perses is an ancient Greek name given to:* Greek mythology people:*Perse...
, a king of Tauris, husband of his niece Hecate

Hecate

Hecate Hekate , or Hekat was originally a goddess of the wilderness and childbirth, naturalized early in Mycenaean Greece or in Thrace, but originating among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, progenitor of Mausollus, are attested, and where Hekate re...
, and father of Circe, Medea and Aegialeus.

Pausanias

Pausanias

Pausanias *Pausanias , lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's Symposium*Pausanias , Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC...
states that, according to the poet Eumelos, Aeëtes was the son of Helios (from northern Peloponnesus) and brother of Aloeus

Aloeus

In Greek mythology, Aloeus was the son of Poseidon and Canace, husband first of Iphimedeia and later of Eeriboea, and father of Salmoneus , Aloadae and Ephialtes , collectively known as the Aloadae....
.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Helios

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
Perseis

Perseis

Perseis may refer to:*Perse*Perseis ...
(a daughter of Oceanus

Oceanus

Oceanus was believed to be the World Ocean in classical antiquity, which the Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece considered to be an enormous river encircling the world....
), brother of Circe

Circe

Pasiphaë

Medea

Chalciope

Perses

Perses is an ancient Greek name given to:* Greek mythology people:*Perse...
, a king of Tauris, husband of his niece Hecate

Hecate

Pausanias

Aloeus

Asopus

Asopus or As?pos is the name of five different rivers in Greece and Turkey and also in Greek mythology the name of the God of those rivers....
) and Aeëtes the part of Ephyra

Ephyra

Ephyra may refer to:* The city of Kichyro, later known as Ephyra.* Ephyra, one of the Oceanids* Ephyra, one of the Nereids* Ephyra, stage of the life cycle of Aurelia ...
(Corinthos). Later, Aeëtes gave his kingdom to Bounos, a son of Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
and Alkidameia, and went to Colchis

Colchis

In ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgia , state monarchy and region in the Western Georgia , which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgians and its subgroups....
, a country in western Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region located between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It is home to Europe's highest mountain ....
. When Bounos died, Epopeus

Epopeus

Epopeus was a Greek mythology king of Sicyon, with an archaic bird-name that linked him to epops , the hoopoe, the "watcher". A fragment of Callimachus' Aitia appears to ask, "Why, at Sicyon, is it the hoopoe, and not the usual "splendid ravens", that is the Auspice?"...
, a son of Aloeus who ruled in Asopia, became king of Ephyra too. Aeëtes built a new colony in Colchis, near the mouth of the large river Phasis, and called it Aea

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia 's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi....
.

Phrixus

Phrixus

File:Phrixos und Helle.jpgIn Greek mythology, Phrixus was the son of Athamus, king of Boeotia and Nephele . His twin sister Helle and him were hated by their stepmother, Ino....
, son of Athamus and Nephele

Nephele

In Greek mythology, Nephele was a cloud nymph who figured prominently in the story of Phrixus and Helle .Greek myth also has it that Nephele is the cloud whom Zeus created in the image of Hera to trick Ixion, since he tried to rape the goddess....
, along with his twin Helle

Helle (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Helle figured prominently in the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Phrixus, son of Athamus and Nephele, along with his twin sister, Helle, were hated by their stepmother, Ino....
, were hated by their stepmother, Ino

Ino (Greek mythology)

In Greek mythology Ino was a mortal queen of Thebes , the second wife of Athamas, the mother of Learches and Melicertes, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia and stepmother of Phrixus and Helle ....
. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the twins, roasting all the town's crop seeds so they would not grow. The local farmers, frightened of famine, asked a nearby oracle

Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophecy opinion; an infallible authority, usually Spirituality in nature....
for assistance. Ino bribed the men sent to the oracle to lie and tell the others that the oracle required the sacrifice of Phrixus. Before he was killed, though, Phrixus and Helle were rescued by a golden ram sent by Nephele, their natural mother. Helle fell off the ram into the Hellespont

Hellespont

Hellespont was the ancient name of the narrow strait, now known by the modern European term 'Dardanelles'. It was so called from Helle , the daughter of Athamas, who was drowned here in the mythology of the Golden Fleece....
(which was named after her) and died, but Phrixus survived all the way to Colchis, where Aeëtes took him in and treated him kindly, giving Phrixus his daughter, Chalciope

Chalciope

Chalciope was a princess in Greek mythology, daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, sister of Medea and wife of Phrixus. Phrixus, son of Athamus and Nephele, along with his twin Helle , were hated by their stepmother, Ino....
, in marriage. In gratitude, Phrixus gave the king the golden fleece

Golden Fleece

In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece is the fleece of the winged ram Chrysomallos . It figures in the tale of Jason and his band of Argonauts, who set out on a quest for the fleece in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly....
of the ram, which Aeëtes hung on a tree in his kingdom.

Some time later, Jason

Jason

Jason was a late ancient Greece Greek mythology figure, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus....
arrived to claim the fleece as his own. Aeëtes promised to give it to him only if he could perform certain tasks. First, Jason had to plow a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself. Then, Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon

Dragon's teeth (mythology)

In Greek mythology, dragon's teeth feature prominently in the legends of the Phoenician prince Cadmus and Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece. In each case, the dragon's teeth, once planted, would grow into fully armed warriors....
into a field. The teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Jason was quick-thinking, however, and before they attacked him, he threw a rock into the crowd. Unable to determine whence the rock had come, the soldiers attacked and killed each other. Finally, Aeëtes made Jason fight and kill the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece. Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Aeëtes's daughter Medea

Medea

Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Aeetes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children: Mermeros and Pheres....
, who had fallen in love with him and helped him win the fleece. Aeëtes pursued them in his own ship as they fled, but Medea distracted her father by killing and dismembering her brother, Apsyrtus, and throwing pieces of his cadaver overboard. Aeëtes paused to gather the pieces of his son, and thus Medea and Jason escaped.

Sources

Orpheus. Argonautica, 760-1044.
Apollonius Rhodius. Arganautica, 3,240-4,131.
Apollodorus. Library, 1,83.
Pausanias. Description of Greece, 2,3.10.
Strabo. Geographica, 1,45.